1 Corinthians 9:4 Commentary and Bible Study

What is this an answer to? Well, one of the questions seems to have been, ‘If you were an apostle, why do you work for your own living? That demeans you. And if you do that, does it mean that other people should not be paid or supported as evangelists and pastors?’ So, the apostle Paul deals with these questions.But there is a second thing here too, and that is that he was motivated by a concern to reach people, so that they would hear. Paul did not do anything without thinking it through. He had considered his entire life and its details from the perspective of the gospel. What circumstances would enable him to reach the most people for Christ? What would make him most effective as an apostle?He means, ‘we’, the apostles, including himself, and indeed all who preach. That is going to be the subject, as we see in verse 6. For ‘power’ we should read ‘right’ – it is the same word. ‘Have we not the right’, we apostles, ‘to eat and to drink?’ That means, do we not have the right to eat and to drink at the church’s expense, to be supported. That is what the passage is going to be about. Do we not have the right to take along a sister, a wife, to look after us and to be with us on our itinerant ministry, as well as other apostles? The other apostles, possibly with the sole exception of Paul, appeared to receive this support; he did not. He put it aside. And other notables – ‘And as the brethren of the Lord’ – are named, ‘and Cephas’ is singled out, because he was rather a special apostle.